Day 2 – June 13, 2015: To Xfinity and Beyond!

Despite the late night last night, we both woke up ready to go. We were out of the hotel and across the border by 8:00. Apparently most other people are not on the same schedule we are, so the park was not crowded at all. The park on the U.S. side provides a much different experience than the viewing area on the Canadian side. On the Canadian side you are able to look directly across at American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. On the U.S. side you are able to stand on the lip of the two falls on an island (Luna Island) that splits them. From both sides you great views of the main waterfall, Horseshoe Falls (the one you see the big tourist boats driving up to) and you are able to walk up to the lip the escarpment to watch the water plummet onto the rocks below. Overall, I thought that the Canadian side had better views, but the U.S. side had a neater experience.

The rest of our day was mostly spent driving to our hotel in West Greenwich, Rhode Island. This drive took us all the way across the middle of New York, from Buffalo to Albany. Along the way we passed the Adirondacks on our north and the Catskills to the south. The Erie Canal ran parallel to us for most of this drive. The ride began as mostly flat farmland, but became much more hilly as we moved east. This continued after we crossed the Hudson River and entered into western Massachusetts. Soon after we crossed into Massachusetts we drove under the Appalachian Trail. We will be seeing (and possibly hiking) parts of this trail, which runs for over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine, on our stops in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee during this trip. We continued driving east until we were about 40 miles outside of Boston before cutting south towards Providence, RI. The ride through Rhode Island was, nice, but it's not an island. It's not even a peninsula. I understand that they didn't have Google Earth when they named it, but this is some pretty significant misrepresentation. They must have been helped in the naming process by the good people of Greenland. But all in all, this was an easy ride and a beautiful drive.

From our hotel, we had a drive of about 35 minutes to get to the concert at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA. The Xfinity Center is similar to Alpine Valley in that it is a bit out in the country (not quite halfway to Boston from Providence). The seating on the inside is very similar to that of the Marcus Amphitheater at the Summerfest grounds. Unlike the DMB show we say last year at Summerfest, where it was raining and in the 50's, the weather for the show tonight was perfect with clear skies and temperatures in the 70's. We had nice seats (much better than last year) and the band put on a great show. The only negative is that I had really wanted to ask the parking lot attendants where I should “pahk my cah” but when the time came, I forgot and Amy wouldn't let me leave and try it again. But besides that, Day 2 was a success.